The DOI matches its Crossref record; 15 of the 15 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Rich-Club Organization of the Human Connectome
Open accessAbstract
The human brain is a complex network of interlinked regions. Recent studies have demonstrated the existence of a number of highly connected and highly central neocortical hub regions, regions that play a key role in global information integration between different parts of the network. The potential functional importance of these "brain hubs" is underscored by recent studies showing that disturbances of their structural and functional connectivity profile are linked to neuropathology. This study aims to map out both the subcortical and neocortical hubs of the brain and examine their mutual relationship, particularly their structural linkages. Here, we demonstrate that brain hubs form a so-called "rich club," characterized by a tendency for high-degree nodes to be more densely connected among themselves than nodes of a lower degree, providing important information on the higher-level topology of the brain network. Whole-brain structural networks of 21 subjects were reconstructed using diffusion tensor imaging data. Examining the connectivity profile of these networks revealed a group of 12 strongly interconnected bihemispheric hub regions, comprising the precuneus, superior frontal and superior parietal cortex, as well as the subcortical hippocampus, putamen, and thalamus. Importantly, these hub regions were found to be more densely interconnected than would be expected based solely on their degree, together forming a rich club. We discuss the potential functional implications of the rich-club organization of the human connectome, particularly in light of its role in information integration and in conferring robustness to its structural core.
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“Rich-club organization has been observed in several mesoscale connectomes: in humans, other mammals8,9,17 and light-level (not synaptic resolution) connectomes in Drosophila18,19.”
From Network statistics of the whole-brain connectome of Drosophila (2024) · cites this paper as [8]
In the citing paper
“In terms of neuronal architecture, van den Heuvel and Sporns (2011) have identified connectomic “rich club” networks, whose high centrality and interconnectivity may allow systems with mostly local connections to achieve both integrated and differentiated processing (Sporns, 2013).”
From An Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) of Consciousness (2020) · cites this paper as van den Heuvel and Sporns (2011)
In the citing paper
“Furthermore, the distribution of connections between such hubs is often found to be significantly nonrandom, with highly connected hubs even more strongly connected to each other in a so-called “rich club.”97”
From Graph theory analysis of complex brain networks: new concepts in brain mapping applied to neurosurgery (2016) · cites this paper as [97]
In the citing paper
“My key hypothesis is that the dynamics of the default mode, salience and frontoparietal control networks form the computational core of a brain’s dynamic internal working model of the body in the world, entraining sensory and motor systems to create multi-sensory representations of the world at various time scales from the perspective of someone who has a body, all in the service of allostasis (”
From The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization (2016) · cites this paper as van den Heuvel and Sporns, 2011
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Metadata
- Authors
- van den Heuvel, M. P., & Sporns, O.
- Affiliations
- University Medical Center Utrecht (NL)
- Indiana University Bloomington (US)
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2011-11-02
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 44
- Pages
- 15775-15786
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC6623027
- OpenAlex
- W2012559638
- Cited by
- 2,354
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 112 · 2025: 147 · 2024: 135 · 2023: 153 · 2022: 205 · 2021: 185 · 2020: 188 · 2019: 207 · 2018: 166 · 2017: 196 · 2016: 202 · 2015: 184 · 2014: 129 · 2013: 98 · 2012: 41
- FWCI
- 44.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Pure Amsterdam UMC (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Amsterdam UMC (VU Amsterdam) - Institutional Repository (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Network Analysis Techniques
- Keywords
- rich club, human connectome, brain network hubs, structural connectivity, brain network topology, precuneus, hippocampus, thalamus, putamen, information integration, network robustness, diffusion tensor imaging
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Male, Models, Neurological, Nerve Net, Neural Pathways, Young Adult, Diffusion Tensor Imaging
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